Sir _John_. Yes, in Truth. I am not afraid to tell you, that you betrayed either too much _Timidity_, or too strong an Appetite for Employments, when you could make no better a Bargain for your Party, or obtain no absolute positive Assurances that the _Redress_ should go Hand in Hand with the _Supply_. Are we to bleed for ever? Are we never to taste of Cordials?
_Over_. Our Doctors think that _Bitters_ sit best on our English Stomachs.
Sir _John_. _Bitters_ are of a hot Nature; the _Prescribers_ should take Care, that a too constant use of them may not _inflame_ the Blood too much.
_Over_. They have provided beforehand a Remedy against such an Evil.——A good many Thousands in _Red_, will cure an Inflammation presently.
Sir _John_. They may, by Amputation, if in some of the _Limbs_ only; but should ever Poverty, Oppression, or Despair, force the Inflammation into the _Body_ and Bowels, I doubt the Surgeons in _Red_ would not find the Cure so very easy. But I hope our Friends, few as they are, will find some Means of perswading their fellow Practicers to drop their _Bitters_, and put their Patients on a Course of _Alteratives_.
_Smooth_. Sir _John_, we all wish for Cordials and Restoratives; we own they are wanting; but I am afraid a Time of War and Confusion is not the proper Season for administering them.
Sir _John_. I am much more afraid, Mr. _Smoothwell_, that you have learnt a Language newly imported from _Court_. _Confusion_, if you mean here at Home, there is none; and as for the _War_, I don’t think it wou’d or cou’d go on more ingloriously and scandalously than it has since the Commencement of it, should our State Physicians alter their Practice.
_Blunt_. Scandalously as it has been conducted, it has cost us more than the most successful and best managed War.
_Over_. Our last _Foraging_ Campaign stood us dearer than that of _Blenheim_; and shou’d we have one or two more such parading Summers, to pot goes the _Sinking Fund_.
Sir _John_. I shudder at the Thoughts of _re-mortgaging_ that only Hope we had of seeing one Day our Trade and Industry exonerated from the Clogs that oppress them. The _Fund_, which should be sacred, has been too often made free with; but the Incroachments upon the Purpose of it being temporary only, it had no very bad Effect; whereas the Case would be otherwise, should they be perpetual.